PSI Games
by Andriech
Summary: A young Alfred Bester finds life with the Corps quite boring, so he has to do something to entertain himself. Mature subject matter. Please R&R!


_PSI GAMES_

The Corps is mother, the Corps is father. The axiom meant considerable less to him, who had never had either, than it did to others, he supposed.

He stood shrouded by the great bushes of greenery on the Corps' grounds and stared out at the other groups as they went about their tasks. Many of them were young adults linked to various aged children, but the group's ages wavered downward as ability went upward.

"_Why belong to us, when you live like them_?" the thirteen year old rasped with irritation mentally, turning to the perplexed eight year old he felt approaching him.

Hazel eyes narrowed as the youngster's face folded in petulantly. "We'll never finish the scavenger hunt you gave us by nightfall. I want to play," the young boy even added boldly aloud, as if to wound the older boy further.

__

"Then play," Alfred shrugged without emotion, eyes turning back to survey the others strewn about the grounds. He saw the child's face lighten, but he then stepped back as the hazel eyes reflected the ramifications of such an action. It was merely a taunt of recrimination. "We can't possibly get the information by asking all these people..." Alfred Bester felt the boy's heart still as he turned his dark eyes on him.

The thought was palpable in the air. _"Then don't ask."_

Silence stood between them, and the youngster paled. "Bester, if we get caught scanning without permission, the penalty...."

A slow smile traced dramatically over the young man's face, without reaching the dark depths of his eyes. _"Deal with your problems,"_ he thought not kindly._"They don't concern me."_ He turned back to stare through the bushes. It was one of his favorite tasks to have the groups of children assigned to him do. True, if they got caught than the consequences were dire--but they would learn from that. And if they didn't get caught? Well, they would learn from that as well. 

His charge had disappeared and he stood with his dark eyes staring through the leaves at the groups of people gathered on the open field again, sweeping past their thoughts as though they were grains of sand he let drift through his fingers. The audible silence was one of the things the grounds of the Corps appealed to him. The talking, the guffawing **They** considered laughing grated through him and it was at times like these that he couldn't understand what would prompt a Teep to employ it.

The laughter, the over-loud talking of even the select few about the grounds set a wildfire racing down his spine, about his nerves and back into the central core of his brain. A sudden stabbing pain in his hand brought back the same shrieking laughter, and inner memory of a twisting that stopped them all in screeching confusion and screams. Even now the memory he didn't have gave him grim satisfaction.

Turning back toward the field, his dark eyes widened as his thoughts raced across the distance to sear through forming neurons and toy with yet formed neural pathways. A delightful--and efficient--way to study anatomy, he speculated. The woman's vocal cry was almost immediate and he smiled as he shielded himself instantly. Watching as medic's came rushing to the bent form, he found their futile administrations amusing.

It was not as though it mattered anyway. The woman and her mate had merely been T3's and he had found no ability in their developing offspring. Although part of their community, the less gifted Teeps were regarded as little more than lab rats anyway. He supposed even lab rats needed to reproduce occasionally, but at least they would be expected to reproduce lab rats of the same species.

He felt the searching and he moved his eyes, lowering his barriers only slightly as he found the Director of the Psi Corps' form. Bester knew he was looking for him and didn't try to elude the search. What he had done was against the highest laws even they held. The synapsis and neurons of a forming child could not endure even the slightest contact: they had learned it early on in their research. The man knew he had done it. Alfred Bester could have been censured into a vegetative state.

He wouldn't be. He was a least a T12--that is where the tests had begun irritating him and he had begun replying to them with games the testers found unpleasant in nature. They had been unable to test him for other latent abilities up to this point. In addition, his instincts for the good of the Corps kept him in a special relationship with the Director. The man had wanted this feat performed, along with the other special games he had Bester silently and good-naturedly do in the past.

Then there was that one special thing he shared with the Director. Alfred's dark eyes met the man's green one's, a brilliant light coming into the near black ones as a smile spread across his face. He had felt it again, for an instant, and without knowing why. It created in him a moment of sheer ecstasy. The Director was afraid of him.


End file.
